I almost never
reread a book, no matter how much I like it, because I always have
new ones on my list. Recently, however, the popularity of audiobooks
has made it easier to revisit them. In May I listened to Neal
Stephenson’s The Diamond Age and found it to be even better
than I remembered it. This month I got another favorite, A
Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge (vin-jee.) When I read it 20
years ago I found it to be both ingenious and inspiring. Would I like
it as much today?

The most significant
thing I’d forgotten about A Deepness in the Sky is its
length. The audiobook is 28 hours long! Not that it’s a bad thing,
because the story is interesting throughout, but it takes a while to
get to the meat of the story. It takes place many centuries in the
future when humans have settled hundreds of worlds throughout this
region of the galaxy. Vinge’s predictions or on the conservative
side. Humans have never achieved faster than light travel and have
encountered only a handful of other intelligent races, none of them
space-faring. Computers have not become godlike nor have they
rendered humans obsolete. Instead, progress has been cyclical, with
dozens of great civilizations achieving techno-utopia and then
falling into barbarism. Against this backdrop is the space-faring
merchant clan Qeng Ho (Cheng Ho), named for the 15th Century Chinese
explorer Zheng He. These traders roam the galaxy in huge ships at a
fraction of lightspeed, extending their lives by advanced medicine
and spending large years in coldsleep. Qeng Ho culture was the
brainchild of its founder Pham Nuwen. He initiated the broadcast of
technical and cultural information throughout the galaxy in order to
extend civilization and create customers for themselves. Think of it
as a libertarian version of Asimov’s Foundation.

The real action in
Deepness begins as a Qeng Ho expedition arrives at On-Off, a
star that shines a normal sun for 35 years and “turns off” for
215 years in an unchanging cycle. Its sole planet Arachna is home to
a civilization of giant intelligent spiders. Life has evolved to find
refuge buried in the soil (which the spiders call a “deepness”)
where creatures hibernate through the long freeze.

As the explorers
arrive, On-Off is about to awaken, and with it its spider denizens,
whom the Qeng Ho intend to contact for peaceful exchange. Here they
meet a rival expedition: The Emergents, a human society governed by a
high-tech form of totalitarianism. The Emergents scheme to betray the
Qeng Ho in order to enslave them and conquer the spider world. The
ensuing battle between these forces damages their ships and strands
them all in the On-Off system, light years from the nearest
technological civilization.

Like Martin’s Game
of Thrones, Deepness is a sprawling epic featuring dozens
of interesting characters. These include Ezr Vinh, a young Qeng Ho
aristocrat thrust into leadership before he’s ready. There are a
number of well-developed female characters including Ezr’s friend
Kiwi Lisolette, a strong-willed and brilliant young engineer. The
enemy leader Tomas Nau uses Emergent techniques to brainwash Kiwi and
make her his lover. After a time she always realizes Nau is up to no
good, causing him to wipe her memories again and again. Somehow we
believe she’ll prevail in the end.

The most memorable
characters are among the Spiders, whom the humans are secretly
monitoring. My favorite was the absent-minded inventor Shirker
Underhill, an arachnid with ideas as brilliant as Tesla’s with an
organization as effective as Edison’s. He marries the renegade
general Victory Smith and makes plans to allow his people to stay
awake through The Great Dark, heating the spider cities using nuclear
power. Underhill’s schemes provoke the rage of traditionalists and
fear from his nation’s rival. He and his family face mortal dangers
as a consequence. Meanwhile, the Emergents watch and wait for the
spiders to achieve a sufficient level of technology to allow them to
repair their damaged spaceships.

I can’t say more
without giving away too much of the story. Suffice it to say that I
found the book just as gripping the second time, even though I
already knew the ending.

If the book has any
flaws it’s that some parts can go on a bit too long. That would
include the prologue as the Qeng Ho recruit for their expedition on
the world of Triland, and some of the flashbacks involving Pham Nuwen
and the milestones of Qeng Ho history. But these are only problems
because I was anxious to return to the main storyline.
Unsurprisingly, the book won several awards: a Hugo, a Campbell, and
a Prometheus, all in the year 2000.

My conclusion: I
enjoyed “A Deepness in the Sky” just as much the second time
around. If you’re a fan of hard science fiction, I can’t
recommend it highly enough. It’s full of deep issues like Asimov’s
Foundation but with much better characters. My rating: five out of
five gears.